Hillary Clinton today rejected the growing but controversial call for a re-running of primary elections in Florida and Michigan.

As it stands now, delegates from the two states won't have a say in the nomination battle because the states violated Democratic Party rules and held contests too early in the primary season.

At a Washington press conference at which she was surrounded by generals and admirals who endorsed her, Clinton reiterated her insistence that delegates from the two states be seated at the August convention in accordance with the January contests, which she won.

"It would be a great disservice to the voters of Florida and Michigan to adopt any process that would disenfranchise anyone," she said at a press conference in Washington. "Therefore I am still committed to seating their delegations."

She said the Republican leadership of that state set the primary date, not the Democratic voters. "The Democrats really had no choice and I don't think they should be punished for that."

On Capitol Hill, members of Congress from Florida and Michigan met behind closed doors last night in an attempt to negotiate a compromise that would help seat their delegates. But few traces of a consensus were apparent today, with some senior Democrats ruling out a re-running of the disputed primaries.

"There are 1.75m reasons not to do that," Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said, referring to the number of votes cast in her state. "We had the largest turnout in party history."

Wasserman-Schultz, an influential Clinton backer, put no stock in reports of Floridians skipping the vote because they believed they had no say in picking the nominee. She admitted that the two Democrats' campaigns and the two states have a long road ahead before an agreement is reached.

Meanwhile, Wasserman-Schultz added, time is short: "We have to come up with a solution before it actually matters - so Florida and Michigan's count does not put one [candidate] over the top."

Another Clinton supporter from Florida, senator Bill Nelson, came out strongly in favour of a second primary in the state. Nelson gave Dnc chairman Howard Dean two choices: seat the delegates already chosen in January, or use the national party's money to pay for another round of voting.

"Allowing the massive disenfranchisement of Florida voters to go uncorrected is not in keeping with your responsibility as the head of the national party," Nelson, who took the DNC to court last year over the disputed primary, wrote in a letter to Dean.

Clinton has won the endorsements of 15 superdelegates from Florida and Michigan, three times as many as Obama's haul in the disputed states. But members of Congress are not letting their personal preference get in the way of their effort to resolve the problem, Florida congressman Alcee Hastings said.

"It's the people, the voters, who are much more important than what a Florida Democrat [in Congress] has to say about it or a Michigan Democrat [in Congress] has to say about it," said Hastings, who has endorsed Clinton.

Clinton's campaign also had fundraising news today, announcing that it had raised $4m online since her wave of victories on Tuesday.

"We're going to have the funds we need to keep this campaign going, to keep Hillary Clinton's message out there," senior adviser Ann Lewis said in a teleconference with reporters.

Clinton's comments came a day after Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, and Florida governor Charlie Crist, a Republican, issued a joint statement demanding that their delegates be seated.

"We each will call upon our respective state and national party chairs to resolve this matter and to ensure that the voters of Michigan and Florida are full participants in the formal selection of their parties' nominees," the statement said.

"Whatever we have to do to get people in the system, let's do it," Granholm, a Clinton supporter, told the Detroit Free Press. She said that Clinton's victory in Ohio changes "the landscape a bit" and could open the door to a Democratic caucus - not a primary - in Michigan, though it would have to be privately funded and both candidates would have to agree.

If the two states' delegates are allowed to vote according to the January results, they would benefit Clinton, as she won both contests. She was the only major candidate on the ballot in Michigan, and no candidates actively campaigned there or in Florida.

Her campaign has pushed for their inclusion in the nominating process, while the Obama camp has insisted the states broke the rules and should be punished.

Recent days have seen a growing call for new contests in the two states, in large part because Democrats are uneasy about the prospect of essentially disenfranchising millions of Democratic voters. Florida is likely to be a crucial swing state in November, and the party wants to avoid ill will.

Clinton's victories on Tuesday narrowed Obama's lead to 135 delegates, according to an Associated Press tally. He's ahead 1,567 to 1,462.

"Let's let all of the voters go again if they are willing to do it," Clinton adviser Terry McAuliffe said Tuesday night on MSNBC.New votes would be costly, and it's unclear who would pay for them. The Florida Democratic Party has estimated the cost of a contest there at $25m.

"Michigan and Florida votes should count. To not count them at all would alienate these states in the general election," she said.Crist, however, said on Fox News this morning that he does not favour a new vote.

"We don't want to do a redo. We want the votes that already were cast to count," he said. "And they should. I mean, that's the American way."

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has issued different statements on the issue, at once chastising the states for violating party rules, while indicating they could get away with it.

He has welcomed the idea of new contests, but also hinted the states could appeal to a party committee and ask that their delegates be seated according to the results of the January vote.

"All they have to do is come before us with rules that fit into what they agreed to a year and a half ago, and then they'll be seated," Dean said during a round of interviews today on network and cable TV news programs.

The two state parties will have to find the funds to pay for new contests without help from the national party, Dean said.

"We can't afford to do that. That's not our problem. We need our money to win the presidential race," he said.

The Clinton camp continued its verbal assault on Barack Obama Thursday, with an aide comparing him to Kenneth Starr, the independent prosecutor who hounded President Bill Clinton on the Whitewater land deal and Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Referring to Obama's promise to speak more critically of Clinton's record is reminiscent of the attacks Clinton endured in the 1990's."Our point here is to point out that after a campaign in which many of the questions that voters had in the closing days centered on concerns that they had over his state of preparedness to be commander in chief and steward of the economy, he has chosen instead of addressing those issues to attack Senator Clinton,'' Wolfson told reporters in a conference call. "They've announced that this is what they are going to do.

"I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president. But perhaps that theory will be tested,'' he said.